22. Andy Sallnow – Virtual Challenge Events

As I’m sure you’re all too aware, events have been postponed and cancelled as the UK and many other countries have gone into lockdown. This is a huge threat to charity fundraising income, given how much some organisations rely on sponsored events. If you’re a professional event fundraiser for a charity and you wrestling with how to approach your various challenges at the moment, I hope you’re going to find today’s episode interesting and even helpful. Because in this episode I share an interview with Andy Sallnow of Prostate Cancer UK. Andy has been the head of sporting events at the charity for more than 8 years, and during that time, his team has achieved phenomenal income growth. Having worked with Andy for many years, though of course we’re all facing this extraordinary pandemic for the first time, I knew Andy would have practical answers to some of the pressing strategic challenges. In this interview, we cover a range of questions, including advice for increasing the success of virtual challenge events; how to decide whether and when you may need to cancel events planned for the Autumn; and ideas for boosting the sponsorship your supporters are able to collect for events they did before the pandemic hit. And if you’d like to understand more about Andy’s strategy for events growth – over 8 years events income at his charity rose from £700,000 to £4.5 million - I’ve explained his approach in a mini e-book called Challenge Event Fundraising - How to survive the pandemic and then grow income in the long-term You can download it for free from: https://www.brightspotfundraising.co.uk/challenge-event-fundraising/ If you found the episode helpful, please do subscribe today, so you won’t miss out on all the other pandemic-challenging episodes we’ve got lined up; and also, I’d be really grateful if you could take a moment to share it on with your colleagues or on social media. If you want to get in touch, Andy and I would love to hear from you – we’re both on Linked In, and on twitter Andy is @andysallnow and I’m @woods_rob. Thank you for listening and stay safe.